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"Loving Disscent" / Loving Descent
Fort Worth Weekly ^ | January 11, 2006 | Jimmy Fowler

Posted on 01/15/2006 7:48:45 AM PST by fwdude

Loving Dissent

Father Charlie Curran has made a career out of standing up to the Vatican.

By JIMMY FOWLER

Charlie Curran doesn’t look like someone who’s doomed to be burned at the stake.

At 72, with worn sneakers and rolled-up sleeves, sitting in his book-lined office at Southern Methodist University, he looks like the low-key thinking man and professor that he is.

And yet, as a Catholic priest and brilliant religious scholar, his actions were apparently so heinous that an archbishop once accused him of “sowing scandal” among the faithful. What he taught was so scary that the Catholic Church’s modern-day successor to the Inquisition barred him permanently from teaching at Catholic colleges. Before the ban, he was so well-liked and respected that the entire theology faculty at his former university once went on strike to help save his job.

What did Father Curran believe and teach that caused such uproar? Well, in large part, the kinds of things you might suspect would get someone in trouble with the Vatican — that the church was wrong to strictly ban all abortions, all premarital sex, all homosexual relationships, all forms of birth control except crossing your legs for part of the month; that the church should allow women and gays to be priests; that priests should be allowed to marry.

(Excerpt) Read more at fwweekly.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: curranisanut; gaypriests; homosexualagenda; moralabsolutes; sin

1 posted on 01/15/2006 7:48:46 AM PST by fwdude
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To: fwdude

LOL!!!


2 posted on 01/15/2006 7:53:49 AM PST by Solamente
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To: fwdude

From our local, liberal rag.


3 posted on 01/15/2006 7:53:58 AM PST by fwdude (The worst advice you can give some people is "Be yourself")
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To: fwdude
A misguided man. History influences doctrine, for example, but when the Pope promulgates a doctrine developed through thought, prayer, and study of the scriptures and what the oldest church fathers taught, that is the Holy Spirit guiding the Church to truth it had not understood before. What Curran teaches is contradiction to Godly truth, and God does not change for the convenience or conventions of humans.
4 posted on 01/15/2006 7:59:10 AM PST by TheGeezer
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To: fwdude
What did Father Curran believe and teach that caused such uproar? Well, in large part, the kinds of things you might suspect would get someone in trouble with the Vatican — that the church was wrong to strictly ban all abortions, all premarital sex, all homosexual relationships, all forms of birth control except crossing your legs for part of the month; that the church should allow women and gays to be priests; that priests should be allowed to marry.

Oh, is that all he disagreed with?

He thinks that Catholicism, like every other religion, ought to evolve along with society.

All religions change with society? I don't think so. In fact, most don't bend to the whims of social fashion.

5 posted on 01/15/2006 7:59:14 AM PST by randog (What the....?!)
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To: randog

I attempted to explain the concept that the Church stands outside of time and should not be dictated to by the whims of the day to a group of people over the holiday--needless to say, they had a rather difficult time grasping this concept.


6 posted on 01/15/2006 8:03:16 AM PST by ECM
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later pingout. Didn't click the link to read the whole article. Does Mr. Charlie also say that God should step aside for a more worthy candidate - (ahem)?

Even if he doesn't say those words, that's what he means.


7 posted on 01/15/2006 8:08:17 AM PST by little jeremiah
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To: TheGeezer

"Misguided" is an understatement. Evil often hides behind a kind face.


8 posted on 01/15/2006 8:12:49 AM PST by fwdude (The worst advice you can give some people is "Be yourself")
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To: little jeremiah
The crux of the article is contained in, "He thinks that Catholicism, like every other religion, ought to evolve along with society." That says it all.
9 posted on 01/15/2006 8:15:36 AM PST by fwdude (The worst advice you can give some people is "Be yourself")
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To: TheGeezer

WHAT?? You mean God ignores the polls, pundits and the popinjays of the MSM??? How can that be???. Why rumor has it that God has asked Frey to write the updated Bible.
You sound like some ole stick in the mud fuddy duddy.
Well Thank God for that. I agree with you 100%.


10 posted on 01/15/2006 8:36:45 AM PST by lastchance (Hug your babies.)
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To: fwdude

IOW, he thinks that religions, like the rest of society, should take a flying leap off the cliff into the yawning abyss.

Obviously an atheist in sheeps' clothing.


11 posted on 01/15/2006 8:45:55 AM PST by little jeremiah
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To: little jeremiah

I agree. He's an unbeliever highjacking a denomination in order to promote an agenda.


12 posted on 01/15/2006 8:48:40 AM PST by fwdude (The worst advice you can give some people is "Be yourself")
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To: fwdude

I am a catholic who longs for the latin mass where the spiritual trumped the social. However, Curran makes a few valid historical points as to historical doctrinal practices and on the perceptions of infallibility of the pope's dictums.
I kind of like the guy. I like his point of view that Christains of faith can know no borders. I feel that all christians of faith should stand for and with each other as Christians.


13 posted on 01/15/2006 9:00:22 AM PST by Dudoight
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To: TheGeezer
God does not change for the convenience or conventions of humans.

And for that I thank our Lord every day. The eternal always trumps the temporary.

Thank you Jesus for my chance.

14 posted on 01/15/2006 9:18:06 AM PST by A message
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To: fwdude

My question: what is he doing at SMU?


15 posted on 01/15/2006 9:28:42 AM PST by ikka
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To: ikka

Guess that says alot about the moral decay in much of Methodism.


16 posted on 01/15/2006 1:30:09 PM PST by fwdude (The worst advice you can give some people is "Be yourself")
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To: randog

I had this argument with a French Catholic friend of mine. She tried arguing that the Church should change with society. She didn't like it when I demanded that a society that faled to follow the Church was a failure to Catholocism and that a Church that followed the people on matters of doctrine was lost.

Strangely, she has come to see my side of things, recently. Very interesting interaction. I told her that I agreed with much that Pope John Paul II had to say. Apparently she hadn't heard much of that before.

Funny, I thought I was the Protestant.

Hey, I'm working on it. I now know a small group of Frenh Catholics who seem to be "getting it."


17 posted on 01/16/2006 1:45:48 AM PST by CheyennePress
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